They commence with fourteen articles, consisting mainly of sailing instructions, similar to those which occur later in Ralegh's set.

The fifteenth deals with fighting and bloodshed among the crews, and the sixteenth enjoins morning and evening prayer, with a psalm at setting the watch, and further provides that any man absenting himself from divine service without good cause shall suffer the 'bilboes,' with bread and water for twelve hours.

The whole of this drastic provision for improving the seamen's morals has been struck out by a hurried and less clerkly hand, and in the margin is substituted another article practically word for word the same as that which Ralegh adopted as his first article.

The same hand has also erased the whole numbering of the articles up to No.

16, and has noted that the new article on prayers is to come first.[5] The articles which follow correspond closely both in order and expression to Ralegh's, ending with No.